Practices: Integral Transformative Practice (from Subtle Energies and the Uncharted Realms of Mind Conference Summary), Esalen Center for Theory & Research

Subtle Energies and the Uncharted Realms of Mind
An Esalen Invitational Conference
June 6 - 11, 1999

Practices: Integral Transformative Practice
George Leonard

George Leonard described this approach to transformation, which he developed with Michael Murphy, as a householder's path to address all levels of our being: body, emotions, heart, mind, and soul. It represents one of the premier practical programs that synthesizes the best of human potential approaches. They incorporate intentionality and subtle energies in the program. He emphasized the dimension of practice, the long-term application of oneself to the program primarily for its own sake. Surprisingly, by focusing on the practice rather than the results, the best results are also achieved. The program includes the ITP kata five times/week, two hours of aerobic exercise in twenty minute increments, flexibility, concentration and coordination exercise, reading, and meditation. The full package is designed to balance and center the full body and psyche, articulate all the joints, increase flexibility and strength, build a contemplative stillness, and realize affirmations.

The affirmations proved particularly powerful in their pilot group, so much so that they insisted that one core commitment be that all transformations are in balance with their whole being. For example, one woman intended to grow taller and when she actually grew 1.5 inches, her ribs and joints began to ache, so they put an end to that affirmation. Two key points about the affirmations: they work in synergy with the full program and they are always stated in the present positive, "My entire being is balanced, vital, and healthy." They kept close records of affirmations at the start and eleven months later and the results were remarkable. To give only a few examples, a woman with cataracts managed to eliminate them without surgery, a feat considered a medical impossibility. Another man improved his leg strength 140% in one year without changing his exercise regimen in any way. Yet another man reduced his waistline by two inches without changing anything else in his program, merely by visualizing a girdle of fire around his waist as he did various activities.

The deeper goal of the ITP program is the democratization of the extraordinary through systematic practice. Though George has a deep respect for healers, his experience is that we all have these abilities and it's only a matter of unlocking our own resistance to them. Fred Luskin and a team led by Kenneth Pelletier at Stanford are planning a long-term study of the ITP program with aging populations, once the grant money is approved. They will create three self-sustaining groups. Part of the attractiveness of the program is its cost-effectiveness: minimal investment for a potentially great payoff in terms of reduced hospitalization and increased quality of life.